I bought 3 18y and 2 19y (two4* three5*) for 5 tokens at the beginning of this season, two are decent trainer.

If you don't want to waste tokens bid wars then don't, you just underestimated how much other players are going to spend, no more no less.
When you don't have the budget bid the cheaper players.

If you spend 50 tokens in a bid war and didn't win don't come here and complain about it, it was YOUR DECISION to continue. Nobody was forcing you to use your tokens.

Years ago my brother wants a 18y 5*, seeing others are also bidding I told him 20 tokens minimum to win which may or may not worth it, it did go to the round twenties although he did win and that player became the center spot of his team for many seasons.

It is a manager game and everything is about management. If you don't learn from your mistakes you will never improve and only limitless amount of tokens can make up for your bad decisions.